Last Smile
by 0-WateryTart-0
Summary: Snape watches Lupin's last minutes. (WARNING: Character death and Snape/Lupin slash)


**LAST SMILE**  
a _Harry Potter_ fanfic  
by Viv

Pairing: Snape/Lupin  
Rating: T  
Feedback: Yes please. Constructive comments and criticism are very welcome (compliments even more so, obviously)!  
Spoilers: Prisoner of Azkaban.  
Distribution: Please e-mail me if you want it.  
Disclaimer: All characters mentioned in this story belong to J.K. Rowling. The story is written for the pleasure of the author and readers, and has no lucrative purpose whatsoever. Please don't reproduce this story anywhere without the author's consent.  
Warnings: Character death. This is the darkest thing I've ever written, if you don't like this kind of story, avoid.

His body lay still on the bed, sweat glimmering on his skin. The bleak winter light shone on his face, making him look like a white marble statue, harshly accentuating the hollowness of his cheeks and the dark circles under his eyes. I watched him silently, afraid to move, afraid to breathe, in case any change, any disturbance in the air would make him worse. It was a childish thought, I knew, but then watching someone die tended to make the deepest, most instinctive urges surface. Even in people such as I, who thought that they had them under strict control.

He suddenly twitched and let out a gasp, gripping the covers. I could only watch in horror as he shuddered and whimpered under the assaults of the poison coursing through his veins. His face contorted into a mask of pain, his lips drew back to show his teeth as he growled and gasped for breath. For a sick moment, I had the impression that he was grinning. Lupin could well be mocking me. Grinning and laughing at Severus Snape, Potions Master at Hogwarts, who has yet to discover the potion that cures a werewolf once he has been shot with a silver bullet. At that moment, I did indeed feel like a joke - an extremely sad one. But he wasn't laughing. His body fell back on the bed and he gritted his teeth, panting tremulously.

He was waiting. Waiting for deliverance, for peace. And I could only watch. I was the only one who cared enough for him to stand at the foot of his bed and watch as he died. Perhaps I was the only one sick enough. They were waiting outside. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Potter... all the bloody school probably. Perhaps they were hoping that I would put an end to his suffering with one of my famous poisons. If only I had that sort of courage. The fact was that I didn't. The fact was that I relished these last moments with Remus, because he would at last be giving me one thing that nobody could ever share, could ever take away from us. But this room was so bleak, so empty, and a small voice in my head was insisting that he deserved so much more... he deserved someone who would hold his hand and comfort him as he went away, he deserved to be told that

A short, wheezing cough made me start violently, breaking the gloomy silence of the room and my train of thoughts. I risked coming towards him, only a few steps. He seemed to notice my presence - a rare occurrence, I bitterly thought - and fixed his eyes on me.

'Why?' he rasped.

I read surprise, betrayal, and accusation on his face. He looked like an animal who couldn't understand why it was suffering. Like a dog that had just been kicked by someone it loved and trusted. Like a beast glaring at its hunter reproachfully before it finally gave up life. Yes... yes Lupin, was right to accuse me. I was indeed to blame. Had I not revealed his lycanthropy to the entire school... he probably wouldn't be in this situation right now. I closed my eyes, preparing to do something that I was not in the habit of doing.

'I'm sorry,' I murmured. When I opened my eyes again, his expression had changed. There was a small smirk on his lips, and his eyes glimmered with something that looked very much like mockery. Or was it triumph? Then he averted his gaze, and I crossed my arms over my chest, aching inside and twitching with anger at the idea that he could laugh at my apology.

'What for, Severus?' He'd asked the question while looking out of the window, staring at the pale morning sky. I stared at him for a while, considering the possible answers. Finally, I allowed myself to sit on the bed, close to him.

'For everything,' I replied. Everything I had done to him, and everything that my kind had inflicted on him. He closed his eyes and smiled softly. For a long moment, he remained totally motionless. Had he died? He was so still, all of a sudden. I willed him to talk to me. He couldn't be gone already. Not now, not yet... I reached out, wanting to touch him, to make sure - but I drew my hand back. I didn't want to know. I wasn't ready for this. I looked at the door, thinking that it was still time for me to get out. I suddenly wasn't so sure that this was a good idea. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to go through this for much longer. A soft growl turned my attention back to him.

'Go,' he muttered.

'What?'

'You stink of fear. If you want to go, go. Nobody's keeping you here.'

I stared down at him, stunned. Afraid? Severus Snape, afraid of death? I'd seen it. I'd watched it with sick fascination. But had I ever watched the death of someone I... cared for? I ground my teeth and reached out, slowly running my hand over his bony shoulder.

He never would have been mine. It was better like this. Oh surely, it was better like this - killing someone because you couldn't have him! I took a deep breath to calm the anger rising inside me, to stop it from devouring me. It wasn't time for that yet. When he was gone, I would have the leisure to accuse myself day and night, for the rest of my life. All I had to do right now was to accompany him, to stay by his side as he drifted away. I squeezed his shoulder in my hand, and he smiled again.

I could hardly believe that this was happening because of my own imbecility, because of his, because of Sirius bloody Black's. Ever since that stupid prank Black had played on me - and on Lupin - I had just been waiting for a chance to hurt him, to hurt them both as much as I could. Something had always prevented me from doing it. Perhaps it was whatever I felt for Lupin. I finally decided to betray him when I saw him once more with Black... as if nothing had ever happened, as if he had never hurt anybody. Jealousy had suffocated me at that instant, and I'd wanted to see them both dead.

Lupin was the eternal victim of men and their petty quarrels and superstitions. He was innocent and loving to everyone, and in return, he only received contempt and pain, even from those who loved him - especially those who loved him. Black had gone after the hunter. Indeed, it was certainly far more productive to avenge his dying friend than to hold him as he died. Didn't he care enough? Or did he care too much? Did he think that he'd got the better job? He had no idea, no idea of how rewarding it was to see that smile on Lupin's face, even if it was only when he grinned in agony. At least, he would die with someone who could appreciate the strange, twisted gift of watching him go.

He suddenly let out a gasp, and his body shook under my hand as if hundreds of silver bullets were slashing through him. I caught a glimpse of his eyes as he quivered on the sheets. He looked shocked, terrified by the pain... and that was when I allowed myself to do something childish, primitive, something I would never do for another than him. I pulled him to me, resting his back against my chest and holding him tight. His hands grabbed at my arms, at my clothes, at the sheets, as if he were trying to find a way to clutch on - to life, to sanity, to me.

'I'm not going anywhere,' I murmured into his ear, though I doubted that he could hear me. He took a ragged breath, still moaning with agony, and his hand sought out mine. Our fingers intertwined, and, for an instant, I felt as if this was how it should have always been. My other hand went to his cheek, as if of its own volition, to stroke his cold skin. The fever was gone, and it wasn't a good sign. His body wasn't even fighting anymore. He was hanging on to a thread... and I had to help him go.

'It's going to be all right,' I lied, brushing my fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. 'Hush now, Remus, everything is going to be all right.' His grip on my hand tightened painfully, and he turned towards me, his amber eyes glinting with a resolve that I knew only too well. Gentle Lupin's will was as hard as steel.

'Release me,' he murmured, staring into my eyes. I blinked, taken aback by his words. It wasn't up to me to release him. How could it be up to me? What more could I do or say that to help him surrender to death?

'I don't know how,' I replied quietly, mechanically running my fingers through his hair. I heard my voice as I spoke, and I could swear that it wasn't my own. I sounded desperate, on the verge of... tears? Now that was something that I hadn't experienced in a long time.

Lupin softly smiled at me. 'Kiss me.'

I could have laughed. Just like in fairytales. A kiss and the princess would wake up. A kiss and the ugly toad would turn into a prince. I sighed. How could I refuse him this last request? Why he wanted it was beyond me. I couldn't imagine how he could not hate me, how he could not despise me for what I had done to him. But he wanted it, and so did I. Somehow, that was the only thing that mattered at the time.

I pulled him to me, his limp body easily settling in my arms, and I touched my lips to his. We remained motionless for a moment, and I would have thought that he'd died if I hadn't felt his breath on my cheek. Slowly, gently, I kissed him. I wasn't used to all this tenderness and emotion, I didn't quite know what to do with them. If only we'd had more time, perhaps he could have shown me... I smiled bitterly against his lips. Well, it was a little late for that, wasn't it?

I released his lips and he let himself slip down against me, to rest his head against my chest. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling tears burning in them, wishing hard that when I opened them, he would be cured or dead. When I looked at him again, he was neither, and I felt anger and pain swell in my throat. "Die! Die, you stupid animal!" I mentally shouted at him. "I gave you what you wanted, now why won't you just die?"

He looked up at me, his face flooded with brightness from the morning sun, his eyes glittering with a need that I couldn't quite define. And as the light rippled off his face, dazzling me, it all suddenly became very clear to me.

'I love you, Remus.' I wasn't sure if those words actually came out of my mouth. If they did, my voice had been so quiet - stifled by unshed tears, and anger, and my own aversion to saying those words - that I didn't know if he heard them. His head was turned towards the brightness outside and his face slowly lit up with a smile.

'I love you too.'

Had I imagined his voice murmuring those words? I was never sure. Part of me would never believe that anyone who had been my victim for so long could feel anything else than repulsion for me. But another part of me wanted to believe it... wanted to believe that Remus Lupin's last words had been words of love for me. That he had forgiven me for loving him to the point of destroying him.

He lay still in my arms, his eyes blankly fixing the morning outside. Our fingers were still intertwined, and I had unconsciously started to stroke his hair once more. I didn't need to check his breathing or his pulse to know that he had died. My words - words that I had never uttered, words that I would never utter again - had let him go out into the light. I'd released him.

A raven crowed in the courtyard, people sniffled and shuffled behind the door. Life went on, outside. I pulled Lupin closer. Life would go on, indeed. I'd come out of the room and they'd look at me mournfully. McGonagall would burst out in tears and so would many of the female students. Then I'd return to my potions class, and perhaps shed a few tears of my own, before resuming my bitter life.

That could wait. For a moment yet, I would hold him, and stroke his hair. For a moment yet, I would make-believe that we were only resting after a long night of passion, and were lazily watching the sun brightening the winter sky. For a moment yet, I'd remember that I loved him, and that he loved me.

The End


End file.
